Development of an electrophoretic platform for bacteriophage discovery

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
A collaborative, multidisciplinary research project is proposed to develop and validate an
innovative platform to study separate phage species and to study the interactions between
bacteriophages and their host bacteria. We will create a microfluidic capillary electrophoretic
(CE) platform to separate bacteriophage from complex microbiota while sorting them into
enriched fractions. This system will be used to culture, manipulate, image and characterize
phage electrophoretic behavior on a molecular level, and to study fundamental cellular
processes that occur during the interaction between the phage and microbial cells. The platform
supports direct injection and measurement of microphysiological cultures and infections and
supports direct analysis and imaging of phage, phage-host and host mixtures from complex
microbiota. This platform maintains viability of the organisms, sorts and enriches rare
populations from complex mixtures in order to study fundamental molecular processes by direct
measurement and identification of novel phage populations. The development of the proposed
phage platform will provide a new tool for the manipulation of other viral components of the
microbiota.

Grant Number: 5R21AI178332-02
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: Matthew Champion